


i guess we've really been out of touch

by seadeepy



Series: Schitt's Creek Prompt Fills [3]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Light Angst, M/M, Making Up, the boys love each other they just suck at communication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:48:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26208961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seadeepy/pseuds/seadeepy
Summary: Prompt: Making up after a fight.OR: David gets frustrated with the silence between him & Patrick.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Series: Schitt's Creek Prompt Fills [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1903411
Comments: 3
Kudos: 100





	i guess we've really been out of touch

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not terribly happy with this, but it's late as is so I figured I'd just post it and be done with it. Consider this part 1 of my eternal series on Why Communication Is Important In Relationships.
> 
> Also, the reference to Jordan is a tiny hint at a longer fic idea I'm working on, and may actually write someday if the stars align properly.
> 
> Thanks to Streetlamp_Sunset for the quick beta!

David is curled on the couch, feet tucked under him and cradling a mug of tea. He's more of a coffee person, usually, but the minty scent is warm and cool at once, and calming.

When Patrick comes through the door, David tips his face up for a hello kiss, and Patrick obliges. But it is close-mouthed and perfunctory, his fiancé's lips dry and slightly chapped. Patrick does not look at him as he loosens the collar of his button-up and plugs in his laptop.

David winces, clutching the mug closer. "So we're still doing this, then." It comes out bitchier than he meant it to.

Patrick shrugs, rummaging in the cupboard for a box of pasta. He moves like an automaton, habit dictating his actions, and David knows he'll cook for both of them this evening because he always does. But there's still the silence between them, congealed by several days of stiff discomfort.

"Patrick," David says.

Patrick looks up. "David." There is a ghost of fondness behind the word, a reflexive response. But there's no trace of the smile David loves so much on Patrick's face.

David pats the couch cushion next to him. "Can you just..." He trails off, not sure what he's asking for. To cuddle? To talk? David doesn't feel like doing those things right now, and he's guessing Patrick doesn't either.

Patrick sighs, but he closes the cabinet door with a sharp click and joins David on the couch. There is tension in his jaw, in his shoulders, and David resists the urge to reach out and massage them. Because this time, he's the reason for the tension in the first place.

Sipping his tea, David tries to keep breathing in and out. Every lungful of air presses against the dark and enormous heaviness in his chest, sending squeezing pain up through his throat and tears to prickle in his eyes.

"I should start dinner," Patrick says woodenly, and moves to stand up again.

“Wait.” David’s hand flutters out, not quite touching his fiancé but hovering in the space between them.

Patrick pauses. Looks at the mug David is holding. His shoulder slump, by a fraction of a centimeter. “What is it?”

“I don’t,” David begins, swallowing against the broken-glass feel of his sadness. “I don’t like this. I don’t want.... to do this anymore.”

“What are you saying?”

David had an ex once who put one of his hand-wash sweaters through the washing machine, stretching and mangling the delicate wool weave beyond repair. The thought occurs to him, at this very moment, that he knows what it would feel like to be in the sweater’s position.

“I don’t know,” he admits, miserable. And since he’s let that small piece of honesty escape, he’s brave enough to add, “I don’t really know what comes next.”

David pauses, scrabbling around for words, and Patrick says nothing.

“I don’t know how to have a fight,” David says eventually. “And still, um, stay together. That’s not,” he shrugs, “really the kind of thing my relationships survived. Um, historically.”

Patrick’s eyes warm by a few degrees, and he says, “I had the opposite problem, really.”

David hums thoughtfully. “With Rachel, you mean.”

“Yeah.” Patrick shakes his head. “No matter how much we fought, no matter how bad it got, we’d just keep getting back together.” He’s quiet for another moment. “Eventually we stopped fighting entirely.”

“And that was... bad?” David asks tentatively.

Patrick huffs a laugh, sinking backward into the couch a little. “Yeah, because we weren’t even close enough anymore to clear the air. We sort of.... carried all the problems around with us, resenting each other.” He looks at David, pale eyebrows drawing together. “I don’t ever want us to get to that place, David.”

“Me neither.” David blinks furiously, trying to hold back his tears. “So maybe we should...” his mouth twists up tight as he chokes out the next phrase, “talk about it?”

Bowing his head, Patrick clenches his fists, and for a second all the muscles in his thick forearms stand out in sharp lines. But then he lets out a long breath, slowly, allowing the tightness to drain away. 

“Yes,” he says. “I guess we should.”

“Look at us,” David says, a bit of dark humor entering his voice. “Learning from our past mistakes. Jordan would be so proud.”

The smile Patrick offers him in return is tiny, just a twitch of his lips, but David’s stomach swoops with a fragile, sudden hope. He reaches out one hand to scritch gently at Patrick’s shoulder, nails scraping against the cheap fabric of his fiancé’s button-up. Patrick rests one warm palm on David’s folded knees.

“Okay, David,” he says, and it sounds just the way it should. “Let’s talk.”


End file.
